{p,h,f,r}, vol. 9

It's Thursday, it's Thursday, a pretty, happy Thursday! As ever, I'm linking up with Leila and her admiring followers to tell you of some small but special moments in my past week. Hop on over to Like Mother, Like Daughter for more peeks into the marvels of ordinary life.

{pretty}
Our oldest granddaughter Jordan sent us this photo of her and one of her sisters with SUPER curly hair (their hair is naturally VERY straight, something they inherited from me). They followed this video: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RAPHSAPshJE to get their hair that curly without using a curling iron (they're really into being as low-tech as possible). I remember maybe 25 years ago longing to have curly hair just like Meryl Streep did in The French Lieutenant's Wife (anyone remember that film?). But long hair and mucho chemicals don't mix too well on a long-term basis so I learned to live with my straight hair. If I'd had this video to learn how to get curls, I probably would have looked like Shirley Temple through most of my 40's (not a pretty thought!)


even more {happy}
Last week I showed you a photo of the shrug I had just finished. When I saw the picture in the post, I realized that I didn't like the tie that I had made, so I made a new one that doesn't jump out at you visually and does a better job of creating the ruffles. Here's the TRULY finished project:


{funny}
I have complained that it's a real stretch to find something funny to share, since I don't have any small children around who do cute things. But this week I have something! We went to the nearest city the other day for a doctor appointment and afterwards went to a very nice restaurant for lunch. Since my eyes were dilated I wasn't in any condition to be trying to take pictures of the restaurant (maybe next time), but as we were leaving the Pirate gave me something that through my half-shut eyes looked like a flier saying that they serve margaritas at 2 for the price of 1 all day. I stuffed the paper into my purse and we left. Today the Pirate asked me what I had done with the cartoon picture of us that the man had drawn and I had no idea what he was referring to. When he said he had given it to me at the restaurant, I fished the "flier" out of my purse and realized that it was a caricature of US that one of the restaurant employees had drawn! Here it is:

We'll definitely be going back to that restaurant to get our free margarita!


{real}
I am having an unending battle with our dogs to keep them from ruining my plants. They're pretty large - maybe 45 or 50 pounds? - and they are VERY frisky in their play. And they tend to be like Tigger, bouncing a little bit too enthusiastically and accidentally wrecking things in the process. When they go too far and I can't stand any more wreckage, I have the Pirate and his crewmate (a friend and neighbor) put up a fence to keep the dogs out of yet another part of the property. So far we've got 5 fenced-in areas; 6 if you count the vegetable garden, and when I saw for that for the last week the dogs had been running around our young mango tree and bumping it, causing fruit fall (which they then took all over the property) I got upset enough to decree yet another fence. This fence will also prevent them from digging holes near a beautiful young hibiscus in the same bed (which they keep doing). Here's the evidence:

And here's what we're doing about it (palo de arco sticks to be put in tomorrow as the vertical barrier).

hopefully that will reduce the dog-related frustration around here, at least for a while.

Five Favorite (Growing) Things

May has got the jump on June in terms of things "bustin' out all over", and here are five things that I'm particularly happy to see growing:

NEW FLOWERS

Our naughty dogs do a great job of protecting our property but they get excited and push against our fence, which started to lean out alarmingly. The Pirate put guy wires along the parts that were most vulnerable, and I bought some bougainvilleas that will end up filling out all along the fence. The nice thing about bougainvilleas is that they have thorns - not terribly big ones, but enough to deter dogs - so they do double duty: keeping the dogs from the fence and beautifying an otherwise unused area.

BABY BANANAS

We're seeing more and more baby bananas on our banana plants, which means that a mere 6-9 months from now we'll have a lot of bananas! It's amazing to watch them first show up, then get bigger quickly, but it takes a LONG TIME for them to be mature enough to pick (they should be picked green and ripen off the plant).

BABY CITRUS

Some of the first things we planted here were citrus trees. Unfortunately our spanish wasn't very good at the time so we didn't know what kind of citrus they were (although we clearly had several kinds). One of them bore fruit a few months ago and we found out that it's a sour orange (a type of citrus common in northern Africa and the Arabian peninsula and other hot places). I just found some new fruits on the same tree - it promises to be prolific. Sour oranges are used in place of lemons in cooking, and have their own exotic flavor.

BABY STRAWBERRY GUAVAS

I LOOOOOVE strawberry guavas! I can eat as many as you can give me! I was SO excited to find a whole bunch of baby guavas on our guava tree (although it's still bush size).

And now for something from the animal kingdom:

BABY GOATS

Our forest granddaughters are in 4H and they raise goats. Two of the goats just had kids. The first set (goats generally have two kids at a time) was two males; the second set was two females. The girls are slowly building up a milking herd. Neighbors buy their goats' milk (it's healthier for you than cow milk, and tastes great), and one of our granddaughters has gotten into making goat cheese.

For favorites of a completely different type, go to Hallie's blog, Moxie Wife, and see all the neat things that people have to share!

{p,h,f,r}, vol. 7

I look forward to Thursdays because we can share the little moments in our lives that would otherwise be overlooked but for the theme of {pretty, happy, funny, real} over at Like Mother, Like Daughter.

{pretty}

This is a stand of corn about a block away from our house. It really IS as high as an elephant's eye - I've never seen corn this tall before! Here's a haiku that our oldest granddaughter Jordan wrote about corn when her sister Ayla told her on the phone that she was making corn pone and Jordan thought she said "corn poem"...so Jordan was inspired to write a corn poem:
Corn grows majestic
Silky tops wave in the breeze
The sunshine beats down

It perfectly describes the corn, verdad?

{happy}

We had a cabalgata in our town last Sunday. A cabalgata is sort of a fiesta for rancheros (Mexican cattle ranchers). It starts with a whole group of rancheros riding into town on horseback, then proceeding to the stadium where they have something like a rodeo but not the physically dangerous parts. The focus is on showing off their horses (and mules) rather than competing in physically challenging events. You can see from the photo that these are real working cattlemen.

{funny}

Bananas/plantains are the oddest plants. I thought you all might be interested to see what a banana looks like when it first starts out. I hope you can see that each fruit has an orchid-shaped flower at the tip. This photo shows 2 "hands" of fruit, and there will probably be 1 to 3 more hands that emerge from that big purplish/grayish bag looking thing below them. Once they emerge it takes 6 MONTHS or more for them to be ready to pick, and they have to be picked green if you ever want them to ripen. Definitely strange (funny?)

{real}

This is the road in front of our house. That's right - it's a dirt road. Most of the roads in our town are dirt. This, of course, means that it's impossible to keep a car clean - inside or out - around here for more than one day. On the plus side, taxes are quite low here since the town doesn't have to maintain many paved roads or provide libraries (although we have one run by a nonprofit group) or pay firemen (we have a volunteer fire department). Actually, our last home in the U.S. was bordered by a dirt road (although our driveway led to a paved road on the other side of our property) so we're used to having dust all over everything.

{p,h,f,r}, vol. 6

It's Thursday! {pretty}{happy}{funny}{real} time with Leila and her beautiful daughters. How much do I love Like Mother,Like Daughter? LOTS!) Thanks, Leila, for inspiring so many of us in so many ways!


{pretty}

We generally have flowers blooming all year around down here (mostly bougainvilleas and hibiscus), but some of the desert plants have recently bloomed. Here's my favorite - an aloe. Most aloes in the States seem to have red flowers, so this one surprised me the first time it bloomed. I love that warm yellow with a hint of orange.

{happy}

The Pirate did some clever work on the lower shelves of the bookcase he made so I can use them for yarn and fabric. This is what I see every morning when I wake up - all of them sources of deep satisfaction. My home altar, my books on prayer and Church teachings, my yarn, my fabric; what more could a person want? I know, more yarn!

{funny}


This is a metal gate that is used to lock up the entrance to a local cafe when it's closed. I love how they attached halves of coke cans to it and put plants in each one. Creative, pretty, and it cost nothing!

{real}

I've been working on knitting a shrug since last November. This is the sum total of what I've accomplished so far: 1 front piece measuring 8" by 16" and the other front piece which is smaller because I haven't finished it yet. This is probably the longest I've taken to knit anything, and it's the simplest pattern you could possible work with (3 rectangles!). The problem is, I decided to use multiple yarns AND not follow a specific stitch pattern (I wanted it to look really nubbly). This doesn't increase the difficulty, but it does slow the entire process down because I can never simply knit a row - I always have to be looking at what I'm doing to decide on the fly whether to make the next stitch a knit or a purl. AGGHHH! So of course I've found any number of excuses to put this project aside and work on other things (right now I'm sewing a bag for clothespins). But I've decided I must get this completed in the next couple of weeks because I can't stand to see it silently accusing me every time I sit down. Besides, it's finally getting warm enough to wear a shrug over a cami.

5 Favorites, vol. 4

Mmmm...now that I look at my list of this week's favorites, I'm thinking what an odd mixture it is! Here goes anyway.


[1] COTTON PLANTS. This is what cotton plants look like. They are indigenous to this area and around here they are considered weeds. I transplanted this from a waste area near our house, and now I'm constantly having to pull up baby cotton plants! (it's worth it though)


[2] GARLIC AND ONIONS. My philosophy of cooking is "first, chop up an onion and some garlic and saute them in olive oil. Then proceed with whatever you want to add..." I naturally fit right in with the Mexican cuisine!


[3] MY MACBOOK AIR. It's only slightly heavier than my Nook - I often carry it around with one hand - but it's a full computer.


[4] THIS ICON. This is called "Mother of God, Joy and Consolation". The gesture of the young Jesus stroking Mary's cheek to console her is so tender.


[5] STONE. I've always dreamed of having a house that has some stone in it. Boy, I hit the jackpot with this one! The entire foundation is stone and all our walkways are stone. I love looking out every morning and seeing all that rock everywhere!

If you'd like to see what other people's favorites are, go to Hallie's blog at Moxie Wife.

{p,h,f,r} vol. 3

What a great framework to help us to keep our minds fixed on "whatever is lovely and of good report". Thanks, Leila & family, for creating this opportunity for us!

{pretty}

This is the view from my kitchen window. The big open space is a field of chili plants. That's the Pacific in the far background.

{happy}

We've got bananas! Growing on one of our banana plants! One of the first things we did when we moved into our house in 2009 was plant bananas and so far we've gotten exactly 2, but NOW there's a whole hand of bananas (aren't you impressed with my banana lingo?) slowly....VERY slowly....ripening. We've discovered that it takes MANY months for baby bananas to get big enough to pick, and it's better to pick them green once they've reached the right size rather than to wait for them to ripen on their own. They actually ripen quicker if you pick them green! Bananas (actually plantains, not the regular type of bananas that we're used to in the US) are very weird in a lot of ways. The plants probably have the highest potassium content of anything, and the best fertilizer you can give them is their own cut up leaves and dead stalks. Once a particular plant has fruited it dies, and new plants are always starting up at the base of existing ones (they multiply through their rhizomes). It's been fascinating to watch their life cycle.

{funny}

Where's my food? Are you bringing me my food?

{real}

This poor grape was planted at least 2 years ago, but unfortunately it's in a back corner of the vegetable garden and until recently was covered up by rolls of wire fencing so it was forgotten and never watered. I'm amazed that it has somehow managed to stay alive, and recently granddaughter Jordan removed all the junk that was on top of it and mulched it, so now it's visible and accessible. It's clearly relieved to have that attention and regular watering!

For more beautiful photos from other happy participants, visit Auntie Leila and family and friends at

{p,h,f,r} vol. 2

This is the Plants Edition:

{pretty}

I love the color of these bougainvilleas. We have several different bougainvilleas on our property, but this one causes my heart to sing every time I see it. It's outside my kitchen window, so I have plenty of opportunities to enjoy it throughout the day.

{happy}

These are baby mangos. This mango tree was one of the first things we planted when we finished our house 4 years ago. The tree is only 4 feet high, but it's got a lot of baby mangos on it this year! Our town is famous for its mango trees, and when it's mango season there is so MUCH fruit dropping from trees everywhere that a lot of it is given to the horses/cows/goats, and a lot left to rot. BUT, we are excited to have our own mangos just 20 feet from our house! And eventually the tree will get quite large and give shade as well.

{funny}

Sorry I couldn't figure out how to get a better picture of this, but it's a cactus that acts like a vine. It's managed to attach itself to the wall behind our house sign and is heading for the post so it can get onto the roof!

{real}

For the last couple of months it's been "leaf drop" season. I still don't understand how plant cycles work down here - why would they drop their leaves when they're getting watered and the weather is coolish but not cold (mid-60s to mid-70s in the day and low 60s at night)? But it happens here, not just with our plants, so right now we've got a nearly naked poinciana. Happily, it's already starting to grow new leaves so perhaps in a couple of months it will look pretty again.

I hope that you are enjoying seeing what our little corner of Mexico is like. For more lovely places and people, go see